Denver, CO
NEW ADDITIONS ESTIMATING.

## Addition Estimating in Denver Moves Fast — Your Bid Process Should Too Denver's housing stock is aging. Neighborhoods like Wash Park, Sloan's Lake, and Stapleton are full of 1950s–1980s ranch homes where owners are adding second stories, rear bump-outs, and ADUs rather than trading up in a tight market. That means a steady pipeline for addition contractors — and a bidding environment where the contractor who responds first with a clean, detailed scope tends to win. Estimate.Pro gets you from a jobsite walkthrough to a sendable bid in a median of 8 minutes. --- ## What Makes Denver Additions Harder to Estimate **Soil and frost depth.** The Denver metro sits on expansive clay soils in many areas. Any addition foundation must account for frost depth requirements — Denver's frost depth is 36 inches per the International Building Code as adopted by Denver Building & Fire Rescue. Footings that don't go deep enough fail inspection. Your estimate needs to reflect that footing excavation and concrete volume, not a national average. **High-altitude energy code.** Colorado has adopted the 2021 IECC with state amendments. Denver's altitude (5,280 ft) and Climate Zone 5B classification mean insulation requirements for new addition walls (R-20 or R-20+5 continuous) and ceilings (R-49) are more demanding than lower-elevation markets. Underpricing insulation is one of the fastest ways to lose margin on a Denver addition. **ADU and zoning complexity.** Denver's updated ADU ordinance allows accessory dwelling units by right in most residential zones, which has pushed a wave of addition-plus-ADU projects. These jobs carry separate permit tracks, separate plan review fees, and often trigger sewer/water tap upgrades. Your scope of work needs to call these out explicitly or change orders will eat your profit. **Permit fees scale with valuation.** Denver Building & Fire Rescue calculates permit fees on project valuation using a sliding-scale fee table. A $150,000 addition will carry a permit fee in the $1,400–$1,800 range before plan review add-ons. That number belongs in your estimate, not in a footnote. --- ## How Estimate.Pro Handles Addition Scopes When you walk a site, open the app. AR measurement on supported devices uses ONNX-assisted live detection to capture room dimensions, wall lengths, and ceiling heights. On any device, photo-based measurement gives you estimates marked clearly as such — no mystery numbers passed off as surveyed data. The AI scope-of-work engine reads your walkthrough notes and generates a line-item scope: demo, foundation, framing, sheathing, roofing tie-in, windows, insulation (sized to IECC Climate Zone 5B), drywall, trim, MEP rough-ins, and finish work. You review, adjust, and send. Material costs live in your saved workspace. You set Denver-area pricing for lumber, concrete, insulation, and windows — and those numbers travel with every estimate you build. No re-entering costs per job. --- ## Payments and Invoicing Estimate.Pro connects to Stripe Connect for draw-schedule payments. On the Free tier, the platform fee is 3%. On Pro+ (Pro at $39/seat/mo or Elite at $79/seat/mo), the platform fee drops to 0%. Elite also includes invoice exports for your accountant or bookkeeper. For larger crews, the Crew plan runs $399/mo flat for unlimited seats. The Free tier requires no credit card and has no time limit. --- ## Built for 25 Trades, Including Additions Estimate.Pro covers 25 trades. If your addition scope pulls in an HVAC sub, an electrician, or a plumber, their work can be scoped in the same project. One bid document, all trades accounted for. --- ## Denver Addition Contractors Win on Speed and Specificity Homeowners in Denver's competitive renovation market are getting 3–5 bids. The contractors who win are not always the cheapest — they are the ones whose proposals show they understood the job. A scope that references frost depth, calls out IECC Zone 5B insulation values, and breaks out the ADU permit track tells the client you have done this before. Estimate.Pro gives you that document in 8 minutes.